A captivating blend of crime drama and cultural commentary.
In Huang’s thriller, an American reporter on the financial beat in Southeast Asia uncovers a sinister conspiracy.
Jasmine Goo, a financial journalist with a Wall Street media company, jumps a few rungs up the professional ladder when she’s suddenly offered a big promotion to bureau chief of Southeast Asia. Her predecessor, Jim Westport, died in an accident, likely the result of an “extreme sex game,” and she’s recruited to quickly fill the spot. Jasmine moves to the region, settling in a teeming city she calls Crow Town (the actual city and country Jasmine moves to are not identified). She discovers a grand piano in her new home and decides to renew the childhood lessons she abandoned, beginning to study with Joseph Liem, an imperious “dictator” blessed with impressive talent who harbors a deep ardor for Bach. The author quirkily but affectingly captures Joseph’s enthusiasm in this musically astute novel: “Remember, Bach lives under the water. You must report his thoughts merely by showing the audience the ripples on the surface so that we can trace the confluence of the ever-moving waves.” Jasmine comes to suspect that Jim’s death might not have been an accident, believing that he may have been murdered by thieves out to purloin a considerable tranche of “prehistoric gold” buried under an old temple. Huang writes with great intelligence and psychological depth—Jasmine is a memorable hero, as smart and brave as she is vulnerable and emotionally scarred by recent romantic failure and distant family tragedy. The author’s inclusion of some supernatural content feels gratuitous and silly, which detracts from the novel’s gravity, and at times the plot digresses so much and moves at such a leisurely amble that the narrative seems lost. However, this is overall a powerful work of fiction, culturally rich and dramatically gripping.
A captivating blend of crime drama and cultural commentary.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 504
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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